Unrecognized Racisim

As I laid in the bed overlooking Minneapolis (Day 6, City 3 if you are keeping up) this morning, reading the USA Today I quickly became enraged. I had briefly heard about the recent disappearance of the 24yo, pregnant mother from Philadelphia. However this article on page 2A, informed me of two details about LaToyia Figueroa, that I had never heard on the sporadic news clips I have seen.

1. She was the mother of a 7yo girl.
2. She has been missing for eleven days.

Eleven days and she still isn't a top news story on any channel or major paper. However little fast, drunk ass Natalee Holloway has entire afternoons on CNN dedicated to her drunken disappereance in Aruba. And let us not even go back to Laci Peterson and Chandra Levy. What is the difference between the two stories. Now what is the difference between the two stories LaToyia is black and hispaninc and Laci and Chandra were two white females.

An acquaintence of mine said it best in this USA Today article, " They report on on missing persons who are white, female and attractive. The focus ignores the fact that men account for slightly more than half of the nearly 50,000 active missing persons cases in FBI files and that blacks account for nearly 30%, although they only make up just 13% of the population."

Hopefully the Philadelphia mother will be found safe. Hopefully America will continue to overcome the hidden, unrecognized racisims.

In the Background: Cater to You - Destiny's Child on the Today Show